Remote Photo Organizing: peace of mind + safe social distancing
The most common thing I hear from my clients is that they are overwhelmed and terrified of losing their memories to a computer crash or a phone falling in the lake. What if I told you I could give you the peace of mind of knowing your photos are safe, relieve some of the stress of feeling overwhelmed with your photos, and give you a shot of joy…all at a very safe social distance?
Organizing your digital photos remotely not only accomplishes all of the above, but it is super efficient. Here’s how it works:
1. We chat. We have a phone conversation. We’ll ask you about your photos, walk you through the process, and make sure we’re a good fit. If we like each other, we’ll schedule an initial session, which will take place as a video conference (Zoom). Prior to our Zoom session, we’ll send you a to-do list. Don’t worry, it’s easy. It just helps make our time together as efficient as possible.
2. Our First Session. We get started by talking about your goals and developing a plan, which we’ll write up and send to you. We’ll talk digital photos, printed photos/albums, old media like videotapes and slides, and memorabilia.
One thing I’ve learned over the years, is getting the big picture of where all of your memories live and what’s important to you, gets us to your goals so much faster. You may only want help with your digital photos, for example, but knowing that eventually, you want to incorporate scans of your printed collection into your digital collection, or that you want to share your collection with extended family, helps us to design the best digital process/system to achieve those goals.
During this first session, we also start gathering your photos. By now we’ve made a list of all of the places we’ll find your digital photos, such as computers, phones, external hard drives, cloud sites, CD/DVDs, memory cards, etc. We use Zoom technology for you to grant me access to your computer and we begin the process.
3. Consolidation, Deduplication and Organization. After our first session, we get to work back in the CYP office. We finish consolidating your photos, deduplicate (most clients have a ton of duplicates) and organize them. We have software and processes set up for all of these tasks that help make this super efficient.
My favorite step is turning the big digital mess into a beautifully organized library.
The question I get asked often is ‘How can you organize my pictures when you don’t know me?’ First, digital photos have built-in data in them (metadata) that gives us all types of clues, such as when a picture was taken, which is a great starting point. Second, we all have themes in our lives: Family, Friends, Travel/Vacations, Holidays, Events, and knowing that allows me to begin the process of categorizing your photos. And lastly, we get to know your family because we have the privilege of getting to watch them grow up before our eyes.
During this time, we’ll touch base, but most often your time commitment includes our initial session, answering a few questions along the way, and a final session.
4. Delivering your organized collection back to you. This can be done in a number of ways. For example, if you are a Mac user, we most often use iCloud to connect. If you are a PC user, we have a number of other options. No matter what system you use, we have a solution. By the way, we’re bilingual. We speak both PC and Mac. We provide training to get you as comfortable as you want to be with your newly organized photo library, provide you with ‘cheat sheets’ and we make sure you have a backup strategy to keep your photos safe.
5. Maintaining your library. My commitment to you is that when we finish organizing your digital photos, you will have a plan for how to maintain your collection going forward.
In the end, here is what you’ll get:
Written photo organizing plan that gives you a recommendation for each part of your collection
Consolidated, deduplicated digital photo library organized into a simple folder structure. Every client’s collection is a little different, so the final organizational structure will be customized for you based on your goals and the systems you use.
Maintenance plan to keep it organized
The length of time it takes and what it costs depends on how many photos and videos you have in your collection, as well as its complexity. We’ll talk through all of that as we get to know you and your collection.
This process is perfect for someone that:
is overwhelmed or just fed up with his/her digital mess and ready to take action
is worried about losing their memories because they aren’t confident in their backups or they have no backup
doesn’t have the time or doesn’t want to take the time to figure everything out her/himself
is willing to make the investment in her/his memories. If it’s done well, you’ll never have to go through this process again.
Ultimately our goal for you is to get your photos organized so you can find, enjoy and share your photos again. I love helping you rediscover your memories and am so grateful in times like this that I can still serve my clients well.
How do you get started? Go HERE.
Holly Corbid is a certified professional photo manager and Owner of Capture Your Photos, where we love digital messes, as well as helping our clients sleep at night knowing their family legacy will live on for generations. Want to learn more? We’d love to chat. Contact us for a free consultation.